In case you missed it, PlayStation announced that it's revamping PlayStation Plus. The new-and-improved version of PS Plus is expected to deliver much of what you already get from it while adding aspects from PlayStation's other subscription, PlayStation Now, which allows users to play games via cloud streaming. With this new evolution, PlayStation is canning PS Now, formally making both into one new super subscription. Here's everything you need to know ahead of the relaunch of PS Plus.
PS Plus Is Getting Tiers
The biggest change PS Plus users are going to have to get used to is the new tiers coming. Since its inception, PS Plus has always been one offering that gave the same benefits to everyone who bought in--online multiplayer, exclusive discounts, cloud storage, and most importantly, free monthly games. With the PS5, PlayStation even added the PS Plus Collection, which brought a number of PS4 titles to PS5 users for free as long as they maintained a subscription. Now, more benefits are being added to PS Plus as long as folks are willing to pay a higher premium for the two new tiers being added. Here's a breakdown of the new tiers and what they include:
PlayStation Plus Essential
This is the lowest tier of PS Plus subscriptions and is essentially a rebrand of the service as it is now. If you are interested in keeping the exact same service at the exact same price, this is the one for you. That means you'll get multiplayer access, PS Plus discounts, cloud storage, and a distribution of free games across PS4 and PS5 every month. You'll also maintain access to the PS Plus collection, which includes titles like Bloodborne and The Last of Us Remastered.
PlayStation Plus Extra
This is the middle tier of PS Plus' new offerings and is a step up from the Essential tier. It includes everything from the tier below it, and adds a catalog of up to 400 games across the PS4 and PS5 library for you to download. This is a holdover from PS Now, which used to only let players stream titles when it first launched. Later on, the subscription added the ability to download titles to your system provided it was from the PS4 library.
PlayStation Plus Premium
This tier represents the new premium version of PS Plus with all the bells and whistles. It features every benefit of both the Essential and Extra tiers and adds up to 340 more games that can be played. These extra games are from the PS3, PS2, PSP, and PlayStation libraries. While PS3 games can only be streamed, the rest of the system libraries will be available via a mixture of downloading and streaming. This tier will also receive time-limited trials for upcoming games. As a caveat, in markets where cloud streaming isn't available, PlayStation Plus Deluxe will be offered at a slightly lower price. It will feature much of the same, but will lose the ability to play PS3 games, which can only be streamed.
New PS Plus Prices
With all this talk of tiers, you're probably wondering how much this is all going to cost you at the end of the day.
PlayStation Plus Essential, the lowest tier which will resemble the service as it is now, will not have a change in pricing. In the US, that breaks down to $9.99 monthly / $24.99 quarterly / $59.99 yearly. For the UK, it's £6.99 monthly / £19.99 quarterly / £49.99 yearly. In Australia, it'll cost you $11.95 monthly / $33.95 quarterly / $79.95 yearly
The new middle tier, PlayStation Plus Extra, will naturally cost you a bit more, but the pricing isn't anything too unfamiliar. In the US, it'll cost you $14.99 monthly / $39.99 quarterly / $99.99 yearly. In the UK, that'll be £10.99 monthly / £31.99 quarterly / £83.99 yearly. For Australia, that'll come out to $18.95 monthly / $54.95 quarterly / $134.95 yearly.
And finally PlayStation Plus Premium costs the most. For the US, it'll be priced at $17.99 monthly / $49.99 quarterly / $119.99 yearly. In the UK, that'll come out to £13.49 monthly / £39.99 quarterly / £99.99 yearly. Australian prices will be $21.95 monthly / $63.95 quarterly / $154.95 yearly.
In markets where cloud streaming isn't available, PlayStation Plus Deluxe will be available rather than Premium. The price of this service will vary by the market.
Games Coming To New PS Plus
PS Now has grown a formidable library of games while people have been looking elsewhere and if that is anything to go off of, both new tiers of PS Plus will be adding quite a value to your subscriptions. In the meantime, Sony has formally announced that the following games will be coming at launch:
- Death Stranding
- God of War
- Marvel's Spider-Man
- Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Mortal Kombat 11
- Returnal
Besides these titles, PlayStation has confirmed that it'll regularly be refreshing their library with a mixture of first-and-third-party titles.
Will PS Plus Get Day One Exclusives?
The natural point of comparison for the PS Plus relaunch is Xbox Game Pass, which has steadily grown in popularity and subscribers since it launched in 2017. In what was and remains an unprecedented move, all Xbox exclusive titles come to Game Pass day one. This has made Game Pass incredibly likable (not to mention affordable) to Xbox fans, but has been a source of controversy in the wider industry, since some worry it can cannibalize game sales at launch. PlayStation fans naturally were waiting for news that they might get day one exclusives, but were disappointed when PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan told Gamesindustry.biz that they would not be releasing its own games on PS Plus immediately.
Instead of offering day one exclusives, PlayStation will leverage the Premium tier's timed trials to offer players a tease of new games. The hope seems to be that the trials will lure in more subscribers to sample their most exclusive content, and that completion of the trials will prompt more players to purchase the full game afterwards.
When Does The New PS Plus Launch?
The new PS Plus will not be launching everywhere all at once, but it will begin rolling out by the end of May and every major market should have access to it by the end of June per PlayStation's projections. PS Plus is expected to relaunch in Asian markets (excluding Japan) beginning on May 23, followed by Japan on June 1. The Americas will follow shortly after on June 13 and finally Europe on June 22.
No PS Plus Or PS Now Stacking
PlayStation recently confirmed that subscribers won't be able to stack their subscriptions ahead of the PS Plus relaunch. Stacking is simply extending your subscription, usually by using pre-paid codes and vouchers, which people could often find on sale. Due to the existence of multiple tiers, stacking could've given users years of higher tier benefits for less than the price of a year of their lowest tier, so naturally PlayStation's curbing that before it can become a problem.
Rather than invalidating all vouchers and codes for both PS Plus and PS Now, PlayStation has instead offered a very confusing conversion system that still allows us to use them and translates them to appropriate amounts of time depending on the tier you subscribe to.